Reid cites Life of Brian over Rushdie award

The home secretary evoked Monty Python's Life of Brian yesterday to defend the government's decision to award a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, as demonstrations and clerical death threats continued in Asia.

During a visit to New York, John Reid defended the award and said Britain had no intention of apologising for it. "A lot of people were upset when John Cleese made Life of Brian," he said, referring to the 1979 film directed by Terry Jones and written by the Monty Python team, which ended with a crucifixion singalong. Others had been offended by Mel Gibson's 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ, he said.

"We have very strong laws about promoting racial intolerance," said Mr Reid, in response to a question at the end of a speech to the Citizens' Crime Commission. "It isn't a free-for-all. We've thought very carefully about it. But we have a right to express opinions and a tolerance of other people's point of view, and we don't apologise for that."

However, the decision to give the award was criticised yesterday by the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, on a visit to London.

Speaking after a meeting on unrelated matters with the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, he said: "Iraq is a Muslim country. We believe that, with all due respect to the knighthood, I think it was untimely. This is my view. I don't have any official position from my government on this issue."

Protests against the knighthood took place yesterday in Malaysia and Pakistan. The row flared up earlier this week when Pakistan's minister for religious affairs, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, was reported as having said that "if someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'Sir' title".

A Foreign office spokeswoman said last night that Mr ul-Huq said that he had been misquoted.